I’m a mamarazzi

My kids are used to dealing with the paparazzi me taking pics but they don’t always like it. Sometimes I get the money shot, more often I get scowls. I’ve learned that “say cheese” is the fastest way to get Big to run the opposite direction. At best, “say cheese” gets me fake, plastered-on smiles anyways. I recently switched it to, “yell fart!” So far, so good, though that gets me wide-open, choir boy mouths in every shot. I just recently found these great Becky Earl Photography tips for getting natural facial expressions and I’m going to try them out. Our blogger Elise also offered some great tips in her post “Outtakes.” Thank goodness for digital photography, where I can take eleventy billion shots and keep only the best ones.

As of this moment, I have 40,514 photographs in my online Shutterfly account. When I moved over from Kodak Gallery a year ago I had 30,076. That means I took over ten thousand pictures last year. Remember up there when I wrote that I keep only the best photographs? These 40K on Shutterfly represent the ones that were “best,” or at least good enough to upload for online eternity. Because I’m just a tad OCD and because I haven’t run out of storage space (yet), I keep ALL of my photos, good or bad, on an external hard drive. Here’s a snapshot of the My Pictures folder on my external hard drive:

Yes, that’s 80K. Eighty thousand pictures. So yeah, I may have a bit of a problem.

In my own defense, though, this “problem” does have its advantages. In just a hot second (because those 80K photos are oh-so-well-organized), I can wax nostalgic about how quickly my kids are growing up.

When did this cherub sleeping in a hammock . . .Photo credit JSeiderer

How did this boy who, at six months old, could barely sit up long enough to wave to his daddy . . .Photo credit JSeiderer

. . . turn into this one, who could barely hold still and stop rolling his eyes long enough for this photo to be taken?Photo credit JSeiderer

Where did the four years go between this photo . . .Photo credit JSeiderer

. . . and this one?Photo credit JSeiderer

At this rate, I’ll have nearly two hundred thousand “keepers” on Shutterfly (or whatever site replaces it by then) by the time Little finishes high school. That’s plenty of fodder for embarrassing blackmail for their graduations, their weddings, or when they have kids of their own. Hmm, maybe being a shutter bug isn’t a problem after all.

Mwah hah hah hah!Photo credit JSeiderer

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About The Author

Jen is a nerdy mama with a touch of OCD and a penchant for snarkiness. Before she joined the corporate world in order to put food on the table, she obtained a Social Work degree in order to save the world and hug all the trees. Currently, she works full-time from home and puts her degree to good use in designing online training programs for a large insurance company. Jen originally hails from rural northwest Pennsylvania, where “creek” is pronounced “crick” and cow tipping is an accepted social activity. Jen lives in Simsbury with her husband and two little boys, who are well on their way to being the best-documented children in history (40K+ photos and counting).

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10 Comments

patti
on July 17, 2013 at 9:27 am

When my girls were younger we used to have them blow raspberries at the camera… and click the shutter right after–9 times out of 10 they’d be giggling and it resulted in a good smile picture. I’ll still do it now with my 8 year old because even though she’s not giggling it will loosen her up a bit and the resulting smile is better than the forced “my lips are smiling but my eyes are showing how self-conscious I feel” look. thanks for the links to the other tips–they will definitely be helpful!

Thanks! No, I actually get very few of them printed. I do a handful in frames on the mantel and I do those huge engineering prints but otherwise I just put all my pics on my personal blog. I do have my personal blog printed into a book every year though, so maybe that counts. I’m obsessive about (um, everything) keeping up to date with pics on my blog because otherwise I’ll fall hopelessly behind, so I end up posting nearly every day. The grandparents love it! I used to do physical scrapbooking before I had kids but now I have wayyyy too many pics and wayyyyy to little time.

Kriste
on July 17, 2013 at 12:55 pm

Love this post Jen! What kind of camera do you use? Your photos are always gorgeous.

Michelle
on July 17, 2013 at 1:41 pm

I agree. Her photos are always beautiful. MUCH nicer than what my cell phone camera takes.

Thanks, Kriste! I actually have two — a big Canon PowerShot SX20IS and a Canon PowerShot A630 for quicker shots and times when I need one that will fit in my pocket. Both of them have articulating LCD screens, which I found comes in very handy when you’re trying to get shots of active kids from weird angles.

I recently had to admit I have a problem. I’m just not sure if my problem is that I keep too many pictures or that 60gigs of storage space isn’t enough. For me it’s travel pictures, and I swear I’m going to edit more and only keep the ‘perfect’ ones – but I want them all!

J Timothy Quirk
on July 18, 2013 at 8:52 pm

I still have undeveloped film in the cupboard and maybe one day I’ll actually get them developed but with online galleries and digital photos, it’s no wonder we keep THOUSANDS of photos.As long as there’s space in the virtual sphere out there, why not! maybe one photo that might not speak to you will speak to your kids…or eventually grand kids…or theirs..:)

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